Whatever Happened To: Actor, TV host Eugenia Hartig

Eugenia Orlich Hartig, a prominent longtime resident of Sioux Falls, was only 20 years old when she joined the U.S. Navy division WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) during World War II.

Hartig, a native of Chisholm, Minn., had left the University of Minnesota to enlist because her twin sister, Euphemia, had. “I thought it was a good idea,” says Hartig, now 91, by phone from her current home in Omaha as she reminisces about her life.

As a U.S. Navy Band vocalist for two years, Hartig even met and sang with Frank Sinatra in San Francisco in 1943. “I traveled around to stage door canteens,” she says, in a reference to recreational centers for servicemen.

She spent more time in the spotlight during her 50 years in Sioux Falls, including as host of a TV talk show, as an assistant college professor and as an actor in 19 community musical theater productions.

“I like to be busy,” Hartig says.

Her forays into local TV were both straightforward and fascinating.

“I was always looking around for things I wanted to do. I went to KELO, auditioned and they hired me right away,” she says.

While there, she worked with her husband, Leo Hartig, a KELO news director and anchor. The couple divorced in 1992, and he died in 1997.

Eugenia Hartig produced and hosted a daily noontime TV show from 1959 to 1981 and interviewed many celebrities, actors and politicians including John F. Kennedy, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and Gregory Peck, and Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel, a professor, especially touched Hartig. “He escaped from the Holocaust, and I’ll never forget what he said when people wonder where God was — ‘God was there, we just weren’t listening. We have to keep listening and pass it on so it never happens again. There are no answers, only questions,’ ” Hartig recalls softly.

How did a small Midwestern TV station snag such prominent people? “They just happened to be in the area,” says Hartig, also known as “Gena.”

Hartig, who has a master’s degree in music and speech, passed along her zeal for the media to the students she taught at Augustana College, starting in 1964. One of those students, Mary Harum, would substitute on her TV show from time to time.

Harum eventually changed her name to Mary Hart and went on to host “Entertainment Tonight.”

Hartig also kept up with her vocal work by singing with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra and the Municipal Band and giving voice lessons. She also held workshops and seminars in speech, listening and personality around the area.

Acting was another passion. Hartig performed the lead in many productions, including “The King and I,” “Guys and Dolls” and “The Sound of Music.”

Staying busy might be her own personal fountain of youth. She exercises nearly every day and participates in classes at the New Cassel Retirement Center, where she lives. Plus, she says, “I run everywhere.”

Hartig moved to Omaha 15 years ago to be near her three sons and three grandchildren. She still has five voice students and goes to the orchestra and opera as often as possible, but she says it’s difficult to stay busy enough. Even though she speaks frequently with her sister in Missouri, her two brothers in Reno and her children and grandchildren, she pines for more.

So she fills her time by attending nearly every event her retirement center provides. “When you’ve had an exciting life, it’s hard to scale back,” she says.